Of course not. In Greek mythology, Icarus, got too close and his wax wings melted. Today, we have other ways to see the Sun. Spacecraft take photos and some have instruments that allow us to study the interior. Unlike Icarus, we don't need to worry about our wax wings melting.

Layers of the Sun

The Sun is a sphere, composed almost entirely of the elements hydrogen and helium. The Sun is not solid, nor is it a typical gas. Most atoms in the Sun exist as
plasma
, a fourth state of matter made up of superheated gas with a positive electrical charge.

Internal Structure

Because the Sun is not solid, it does not have a defined outer boundary. It does, however, have a definite internal structure with identifiable layers (
Figure
below
). From inward to outward they are:

The layers of the Sun.

The Sun’s central core is plasma with a temperature is around 27 million
o
C. At such high temperatures hydrogen combines to form helium by
nuclear fusion
, a process that releases vast amounts of energy. This energy moves outward, towards the outer layers of the Sun.

The
radiative zone
, just outside the core, has a temperature of about 7 million
o
C. The energy released in the core travels extremely slowly through the radiative zone. A particle of light, called a
photon
, travels only a few millimeters before it hits another particle. The photon is absorbed and then released again. A photon may take as long as 50 million years to travel all the way through the radiative zone.

In the
convection zone
, hot material from near the radiative zone rises, cools at the Sun’s surface, and then plunges back downward to the radiative zone. Convective movement helps to create solar flares and sunspots.

The Outer Layers

The next three layers make up the Sun’s atmosphere. Since there are no solid layers to any part of the Sun, these boundaries are fuzzy and indistinct.

The
photosphere
is the visible surface of the Sun, the region that emits sunlight. The photosphere is relatively cool — only about 6,700
o
C. The photosphere has several different colors, including oranges, yellow and reds. This characteristic gives it a grainy appearance.

The
chromosphere
is a thin zone, about 2,000 km thick, that glows red as it is heated by energy from the photosphere (
Figure
below
). Temperatures in the chromosphere range from about 4,000
o
C to about 10,000
o
C. Jets of gas fire up through the chromosphere at speeds up to 72,000 km per hour, reaching heights as high as 10,000 km.

The chromosphere.

The
corona
is the outermost plasma layer. It is the Sun’s halo or "crown." The corona’s temperature of 2 to 5 million
o
C is much hotter than the photosphere (
Figure
below
).

(a) During a solar eclipse, the Sun’s corona is visible extending millions of kilometers into space. (b) The corona and coronal loops in the lower solar atmosphere taken by the TRACE space telescope.